The Defend Trade Secrets Act: IP legislation ready to move forward now; The Hill, 12/2/15

David J. Kappos, The Hill; The Defend Trade Secrets Act: IP legislation ready to move forward now:

"The Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2015 (DTSA), for which identical bills were proposed with bipartisan support in both the House and Senate on July 29, 2015, would significantly improve federal protections to curb trade secret theft and thus secure the value of trade secrets. In our modern knowledge economy where (no surprise) knowledge is a source of immense value, American companies are finding themselves the victims of trade secret theft at an alarming rate. Unscrupulous business practices free-riding off of the investment of innovative competitors is hardly a recent phenomenon. But the impact of mass digitization has enabled theft on an unprecedented scale. A 2013 U.S. Chamber of Commerce study estimated the cost of cybercrime to the United States was upward of $120 billion; a 2014 PricewaterhouseCoopers/CREATe.org report estimated that theft of trade secrecy amounts to 1-3 percent of U.S. GDP."